Various types of oil and/or gas well tools are used in which the body includes a plurality of metal sections threadably connected together to enclose the working parts of the tool. The threaded connections must be pressure tight and generally include sealing means. However, in assembling the well tool, various adjustments have to be made in the internal workings of the tool. This requires that the threaded connections of the well tool be repeatably unscrewed and rescrewed together until the working parts are suitably adjusted. This leads to the possibility of damaging or galling the threaded connections. Furthermore, since the threaded connections must be made up tight to be pressure tight, this requires that adjacent parts must have concentric mating parts in view of the fact that the rotational position of the various sections relative to each other may vary.
However, it is also desired to run fluid control lines downhole to operate various well equipment. In some cases there is insufficient room in the well to allow the control line to fit on the outside of a well tool for controlling equipment therebelow. Therefore, it would be desirable to run the control line through the body of the uphole well tools. However, this would be difficult to do in well tools having a plurality of sections threaded connected together.
The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for making up and sealing sections of a well tool without the use of welds or threads and may be connected and disconnected a multiple of times and still provide a pressure tight connection. The present invention also provides a longitudinally extending passageway, through each of the sections of a well tool, which is aligned for recovering a continuous flow line therein.